Council Expansion: Yes on 2

Charter Amendment 2 on next week’s municipal ballot would expand the Los Angeles City Council from 15 to 17 members in an effort to promote minority political representation in Los Angeles. It is a worthy goal that warrants support.

Proponents, including Mayor Tom Bradley, argue that expanding the council would make it easier for the city’s large Latino community and its fast-growing Asian population to elect one of their own to the council. Although a quarter of the city’s population is of Latin American extraction, no Latino has served on the council in 20 years; no Asian-American has ever held a council seat.

Los Angeles, with its close cultural and economic ties to Asia and Latin America, cannot be proud of that record. If a special effort is needed to weave the city’s Latino and Asian communities into the political fabric of Los Angeles, it must be made. For that reason we support Charter Amendment 2, although history provides cause for skepticism about whether it could accomplish its aim.

There is no guarantee that drawing new council district lines to create “Latino” and “Asian” seats would lead to the election of politicians from those ethnic communities. The council created a Latino district on the Eastside in 1972, giving Councilman Arthur K. Snyder’s 14th District a population more than two-thirds Latino. But Snyder has managed to get himself reelected there ever since because the demographics of his district are deceiving--many Latinos in the 14th District are non-citizens or young people, neither of whom can vote.

Opponents of Charter Amendment 2 argue that if city officials were serious about creating “Asian” or “Latino” districts they would have simply realigned the 15 existing council districts--a valid point. But the argument is not politically realistic. Incumbents the world over are loath to give up advantages, including the prerogative of drawing their district lines as they see fit. At least by creating completely new districts Charter Amendment 2 would open the process for some new members to get into an increasingly exclusive club.

Unfortunately, the fate of the charter amendment may well be settled not on the question of the worthy goal of making the democratic process more democratic but on the question of money. Two additional council members and their staffs and expenses would add about $1 million a year to the city budget. Political analysts reckon that this alone could doom the proposal in these tax-conscious days. That, too, could have been avoided if Bradley and the council had offered in advance to surrender funds from their own office budgets to cover the costs of a 17-member council. But cost should not be a consideration when principle is involved, and in this case the principle of equal representation is of overriding importance.

We recommend a Yes vote on Charter Amendment 2.